Big-train Pilots Make The Grade

Operating a 100-car freight train snaking through the San Bernardino Mountains isn`t like driving the family car or even an 18-wheeler.

Granted, each has its potential for disaster. Operating each requires skill.

But getting pushed and buffeted by 8,000 to 10,000 tons of heavily laden freight cars while trying to descend a 2.8 percent grade on a sharp curve around the bulging belly of a granite peak is like nothing ever experienced on a highway.

The dynamic forces involving track and train can be hair-raising to railroaders trained to operate over more docile flatlands.

While the engineer is using his brakes and throttle to control the train`s plunge down the mountainside, the rear half may still be struggling its way upward on the reverse side of the grade.

Or, conversely, if the front end of the train is climbing, the rear end may still be gathering momentum as it shoves its way down the last hill.

``It`s scary; those big, nasty trains can be a nightmare,`` said Larry Wright, a Santa Fe Railway locomotive engineer who now helps train his peers in handling heavy trains under the most treacherous of conditions.

Wright is one of eight volunteers who attended a special training course in the fall of 1987 after an escalating rate of derailments triggered concern among managers of the 12,000-mile railroad that spans Chicago to California.

Labor and management decided that an intensive retraining program had to be instituted not only to reduce the accidents, but to give errant engineers a second chance instead of trashing their careers.

Historically in the U.S. rail industry, locomotive engineers found at fault in a derailment were dismissed without pay under a strict disciplinary code. They were subject to recall only at their employer`s whim.

If they got their jobs back, there was no attempt to retrain them or determine the cause of their mistakes.

To make matters worse, an engineer who served his apprenticeship on a local switcher might be downgraded to fireman when assigned to an over-the-road freight because of seniority rules.

That provided him with virtually no opportunity to broaden his experience or burnish his skills.

``It might take a man 10 to 15 years to become a mainline freight engineer; it would be like taking a driver`s test today and not driving a car for 10 or 15 years,`` said Homer C. Henry, the Santa Fe`s director of train operating practices.

At the same time, another factor also was contributing to the increasing number of derailments-congressional deregulation of the rail industry in 1980. From its founding in 1868 through the early 1980s, the Santa Fe was noted for running a lot of relatively short, fast freight trains of about 60 cars to assure prompt delivery.

``So for the first time in the Santa Fe`s history, we began seeing more derailments due to poor train handling. Previously, derailments caused by rough handling were very uncommon. They were the rare exception.``

But in 1986, 11 trains left the tracks in the toughest territory of the Santa Fe along the 297 miles of mountainous terrain between Winslow, Ariz., and Needles, Calif.

Insurance claims soared. So did customer dissatisfaction.

And locomotive event recorders, devices somewhat similar to an airliner`s black box, indicated that some engineers had little comprehension of the dynamic forces that come into play when a long, heavy train traverses sharply undulating terrain.

``The devices told us that trains of 50 to 60 cars were almost always handled superbly, but that engineers were having problems with 90- to 110-car trains,`` Henry said.

Ironically, the derailment of 30 cars in a 104-car freight train along the railroad`s serpentine mainline in northern Arizona spawned the germ of an idea that eventually provided a solution.

The engineer involved in the accident found himself astride a juggernaut as repeated brake applications failed to slow the train`s path down a 1.3 percent grade on a curve near Kingman, Ariz.

Through improper use of the brakes, the rear end of the train was pushing against the front end in a jolting confrontation; it climaxed when the dynamic forces involved found a weak link.

``The forces converged on several empty flatcars near the middle of the train and they went airborne,`` Henry said. ``The loaded cars pushing the empties from behind buckled the flatcars, literally bending them in two. Other cars derailed. It was a mess.``

A post-accident investigation demonstrated misuse of the air brakes.

``But because the man was not considered a marginal engineer, people started thinking about comments he had made like, `The train didn`t behave the way it should have,` `` Henry said.

Under the rules, the engineer was dismissed. He appealed for reinstatement.